Preserving images of America

Left: A house in New Orleans, Louisiana, damaged by the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, photographed in March 2006 by Carol Highsmith.

Highsmith's decades-long project for the Library of Congress has captured images of the always-transitioning American landscape, from every state of the Union.

By CBSNews.com senior editor David Morgan

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

A self-portrait by photographer Carol Highsmith, via a broken mirror, taken during the restoration of the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Highsmith is at work on a decades-long project photographing all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Her pictures - thousands of them - are going to the Library of Congress, to be preserved and made available for future generations.

"Things are changing for the good and the bad, and so it's important to catch that," Highsmith told CBS News' Martha Teichner. "Now, do I know what will be important? No, I don't. I'm clueless."

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Antique trucks and cars pictured along the road in Montana, September 29, 2005.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Mona Lisa barn art in Wisconsin.

"What's important to me is to record America during my lifetime so that many, many years from now, we can see what we looked like, so we have a sense of who we are," Highsmith told Teichner.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Ruth and Wimpy's lobster stand in Hancock, Maine.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Monument Valley in Arizona, May 4, 2009.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, photographed on April 12, 2009.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Dinosaur Park, Arizona.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

The March 2006 Mardi Gras Parade in New Orleans, just a few months after Hurricane Katrina.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

A sign for the Lollipop Motel in the New Jersey Shore community of Wildwood, December 10, 2006.

Interior view of the Star of the Sea Church in Kalapana, Hawaii, a.k.a. the "Painted Church." The historic Roman Catholic Church on Hawaii's Big Island was raised off its foundation and moved in 1990 because of encroaching lava flows.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

The Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C., February 12, 2006.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Skateboarders in Louisville, Ky.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

A view of Yosemite National Park in California, March 4, 2007.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Mural in Baltimore, Md., September 29, 2008.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Ice fishing in Minnesota.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

"Shuttlecocks," an outdoor installation of oversized badminton shuttlecocks by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, is seen on the grounds of the Nelson Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City, Mo., September 29, 2004.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Two weeks after Carol Highsmith photographed Big Tex, the mascot of the Texas State Fair in Dallas, the 52-foot-tall statue burned to the ground because of an electrical fire.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

An abandoned gas station in Selma, Ala., April 11, 2006.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

A girl selling pretzels at Reading Terminal in Philadelphia, Pa.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

A casino boat is seen on the Mississippi River in Natchez, Miss., October 9, 2008.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

In an undated photo, Kate Carter sits at a barn door on the farm where Carol Highsmith's grandfather and great-grandfather were born, in Wentworth, N.C.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

An aerial view, taken from a helicopter, of the Las Vegas Strip, July 9, 2009.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Pops Restaurant on Route 66 in Arcadia, Okla. The giant soda bottle and straw extends 66 feet into the sky.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Fallingwater, a house designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1934 and built partly over a waterfall on Bear Run in Fayette County, Pa., as photographed by Carol Highsmith August 18, 2007.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

A view at the Porter Sculpture Park, which displays the artwork of metal sculptor Wayne Porter, in Montrose, S.D., September 14, 2009. Many of the sculptures were built from scrap metal, old farm equipment, and railroad tie plates.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Electric sign at the Public Market Center, Seattle, Wash., August 24, 2009.

Credit: Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress

Construction work at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, November 6, 2009.